


moments

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-23 03:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10711650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: it's the small moments - the casual kisses, the easy talks, the languid tumble of his skin on his - that noctis cherishes the most.[fic dump of super short, disconnected nyxnoct oneshots; around 1k each]





	1. edge of the world

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159911252847/of-course-you-know-nyxnoct-and-i-would-like) for [amid-a-lightless-place](https://amid-a-lightless-place.tumblr.com/) from [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159638211212/five-word-prompts)

“Time passes slower without you.”

“That boring, huh?” Nyx chuckled.

Noctis breathed out as Nyx’s chest quaked against his back with the laughter. The simplest, subtlest things about Nyx made him fall in love with the glaive that much more. Things that no one else but Noctis could know, because no one else was allowed this close to Nyx. Close enough to melt into the gentle rolls of the deep laugh as it vibrated through his scarred back. Nyx could almost unravel the ghostly aches in him with just his voice alone.

“Fishing’s not boring,” Noctis scoffed, accepting offense on behalf of the entire fishing community.

“Mmhm,” Nyx hummed, shifting his chin on top of the prince’s head. “What did you _just_ finish saying?”

“That wasn’t to say it was _boring_. That was to say that I like it even better when you’re around.”

The fingers laced across Noctis’s abdomen squeezed affectionately, and Nyx burrowed a kiss into his hair to muffle the fond, “Flatterer,” he murmured against his scalp. Noctis smiled and sunk back against him.

As much as he’d just bemoaned the transit of time, Noctis wished that he could stop it entirely, right on this moment. He’d mourned the loss of Nyx’s tiny apartment in the raid on Insomnia, the closest corner of paradise he’d ever found in the whole city. But this might have been an acceptable second. A quiet retreat from the chaos that the Empire was destroying his whole life with.

He knew that the night was dangerous, but it was hard to be afraid of daemons in the dark when he had a view like this. Perched at the edge of the abandoned dock reaching out into the lake at the center of Duscae, the water looked like an inverse sky cradled between the grassy slopes. It reflected the darkening heavens overhead, burnished orange with the last light of the fading sun, just beginning to show the blue-white pinpricks of the stars he’d loved to trace on the throne room floor as a kid.

He knew that Ignis and Prompto would be fretting over his insistence to stay out fishing past dark. But it felt like nothing in the whole world could hurt him when Nyx’s arms were around him. Legs spread around him, both of them dangling their feet just above the water lapping gently beneath the dock. Noctis hooked a foot around the top of Nyx’s boot, winding his leg around his and earning himself another chuckle and kiss. This time at the spot just behind his ear, the sensation of Nyx’s rough lips against that hidden patch of skin always sending a tickle down Noctis’s spine.

“Keep squirming like that and you’re gonna scare away all the fish,” Nyx teased, mouthing along the shell of his ear.

“A little hard to sit still when you do _that_ ,” Noctis accused as Nyx’s mouth ventured lower to nibble at the corner of his jaw, voice strained as he tried to contain the noise that threatened to escape him.

“You wanted me, little king. You got me.”

Noctis tightened his grip around the fishing rod as that husky voice washed across the side of his throat. He craned his head to the side, an involuntary impulse to provide Nyx more access. Nyx nipped lightly at the invitation, pinching the skin between his teeth and giving a light tug.

“How ‘bout you take a break?” he coaxed.

“I’m supposed to catch dinner.”

“I can live with Cup Noodles for another night. Gladio will be thrilled.”

“Dunno if the rest of us will be.”

“Iggy spoils all of you too much, anyway.”

Noctis whined in disagreement, or because of the feeling of Nyx’s tongue teasing along his pulse. The glaive proceeded to suckle the pale skin until it was flushed pink, distracting Noctis from his focus completely. He groaned, annoyed at himself for giving in and at Nyx for instigating in the first place. He reeled in the neglected line and set the rod aside, freeing a hand up to reach back and rake along the braid in Nyx’s hair. He rested the other over the hands hugging him to Nyx’s chest and turned his face to the side to catch him in a kiss.

Nyx’s mouth curved up into a victorious smirk against Noctis’s lips, but Noctis couldn’t find it in him to be mad. Fishing was one of the few distractions Noctis could indulge himself in to forget about the world for a while. But kissing Nyx was an even better one. Because it reminded him that, while he was losing so much, he still had this. He could still protect this, like he couldn’t protect so much of what the Empire had already stolen from him.

He kissed Nyx a little harder, twisting between his legs to press his lips fully upon his, cupping both hands around his neck, tracing the thin line of the tattoo on one side. He wasn’t going to lose anything else. He wasn’t going to let Nyx and the others protect him without protecting all of them back. _That_ he wouldn’t let himself forget. These kisses, these tender moments, stolen out from underneath the cruelty of the world, were affirmations of his remaining faith. That even when the horizon was blotted out with smoke, there was still hope. Right here. At the edge of the water, deep in the wilds, hidden away from the prying, mechanical eyes of the airships stalking the skies.

“Mm, now you’re talking,” Nyx breathed between them when they broke apart for a space of breath.

“Talking?” Noctis chuckled, airily. “That wasn’t the goal.”

Nyx smirked, roguish and almost _primal_ in its possessiveness with the added tug of his palms over Noctis’s hips, tucking him closer between his thighs.

“Right. Wouldn’t want to disturb the wildlife,” Nyx whispered.

Noctis slid his hands down his chest, smiling against his lips as Nyx leaned up to kiss him again. He settled into the silence, letting his kisses and touches speak for him. Because he didn’t think he was ever going to find enough words to tell him how much he coveted moments like these. Where the world shrunk down to this little pocket of time. Where this was all it was, just for a tiny moment. A kiss at the edge of deep water. Secreted away by the shroud of nightfall.


	2. far away & so close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis gets a surprise phone call.

“You’re sure that you won’t get in trouble for this?”

“Positive. Pelna’s that breed of genius that’s wasted on government regulations. No one’s going to trace this call, I promise. And if anyone asks why I’m talking to myself, I’m high on painkillers and can see the Kings of Lucis. I’ll forget I had a conversation with an invisible entity tomorrow, everyone will cough uncomfortably, and move on.”

“Wow, Pelna’s not the only genius wasting away in the Kingsglaive.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic, but I’m too proud of myself not to take it as a compliment.”

Noctis laughed, the first time in over a week. The glossy papers, spread across the bed before him, didn’t coast very far into the lane of amusement. A poor substitute for a bedmate since Nyx had been sent beyond the Wall. Callous, cutting lovers that came, uninvited, between his sheets after Ignis dropped them off every evening. The coolness of the pages – weighty documents detailing the tumultuous political-power balance between Niflheim and Tenebrae – only served to define the chill left behind by his absent lover rather than school him in the strife of Lucis’s neighbors.

Nyx’s call had been a surprise. As he’d been preparing to leave, while Noctis bombarded him with questions that he couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking – no matter how clingy he was afraid they sounded – Nyx had answered one of the more important ones. And it left a thick ball of disappointment in Noctis’s throat. _No personal calls._ Noctis had quietly rationalized with himself that, _yes, of course; that makes sense. It’s dangerous to be distracted out there_. All the while avoiding Nyx’s rueful smile and trying not to miss it before it was even gone.

He’d been languishing in his bed – wishing he was in another one; a smaller one; one as sulky and lonely as he was, left abandoned deep down in the Galahdian district – when his phone buzzed. He jumped on it, hoping it was Prompto calling him out to do anything other than tear through his own hair over the pressure of the printed words stuffing his skull. Curiosity prompted him into answering when the number displayed across the screen was not one he recognized. One of the perks of being royalty was having a secure connection – no telemarketers or wrong numbers; occasional black-mailers, but otherwise, he only received calls from numbers he knew.

“Didn’t your dad teach you not to talk to strangers?” was the first thing Nyx said.

And Noctis was so excited to hear his voice that he jumped out of bed, standing in the middle of his room like he was prepared to run straight out to the frontlines and match the voice with Nyx’s face.

“You have to introduce me to Pelna one of these days,” Noctis said, presently. “I could kiss him for this.”

“ _Never_. That man’s kiss could divorce perfectly content Imperial marriages and shatter political peace like an ancient Lucian tragedy. I am _not_ risking that lil’ panda-faced shit stealing you from me.”

Noctis laughed, again, at the indignant outrage in Nyx’s voice. As if he had first-hand experience being subjugated to Pelna’s mystifying charms. A hum crackled over the line then; a low vibration that made Noctis close his eyes and imagine that it was warm lips instead of a cold phone mouthing at the shell of his ear.

“Missed that sound,” Nyx murmured.

“I’ve kind of missed making it,” Noctis agreed, softly.

“Have your other boys not been fulfilling their laugh track requirements? Gods, can’t count on those three for anything while I’m away, huh?”

Noctis chuckled – if only because Nyx wanted to hear it. His friends certainly _tried_ to make him laugh. But it was difficult to reciprocate Prompto’s wild jeers, Gladio’s scathing snark, or Ignis’s dry wit when all Noctis could think about was his worry for Nyx.

“Hey, um… Are you sure that you’re okay?” he asked.

“Definitely not,” Nyx snorted. “I’m going stir crazy and I’ve only been in here for two hours. It’s just a sprain, little king. If there weren’t worse injuries that needed the potions, I would already be back out there.”

Nevertheless, Noctis hated imagining the medical tent that Nyx was cooped up in. He’d never seen the frontlines of the war himself. Just quick glances at newscasts that were too short to show the full picture. His best perception of the battles waged with Niflheim were through clipped TV shots and gritty magazine covers.

And the wounds his glaive came home with.

“I just really missed hearing your voice,” Nyx said into the concerned quiet. “I’ve got nothing else to do but stare at stars and think of you. Figured calling would be better medicine than pining.”

Noctis smiled and wished that Nyx could see it, just so he could see Nyx smile back. It would be so much kinder than pricking his fingers on the corners of these pages.

“Talk to me,” Nyx said; a small, sleepy mumble. “About anything. What are you doing right now?”

“Pretending to study some stuff Iggy gave me,” Noctis told him, giving the stack of papers a petulant flick with his fingers.

“Exciting,” Nyx deadpanned.

“Very; maybe they should be, I dunno. He says that they’re important, but Iggy says everything is important. I know that I need to know this stuff, but it’s just…”

He growled in annoyance, rushing a hand through his hair and glaring down at the pages. He wasn’t sure how else to express his frustration other than with a non-verbal grunt.

“You’re important, too. Don’t let it make you sick, Noct. Take care of yourself.”

Noctis breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth – just like the thousands of internet articles he read about easing anxiety told him to do. And the papers _did_ make him anxious. Everything pertaining to the politics he was doomed to inherit made him anxious.

Nyx had been the first thing in a very long time that could put him completely at ease. He’d gotten so used to the cleanse of comfort he felt between his glaive’s arms that being without it for as long as he had was like forgetting how to breathe.

“Will you take your own advice?” Noctis asked. “Take care of yourself? No acts of valor until the medic says so. You’re important to me, too.”

He could feel Nyx’s smile through the receiver as if it was curled against his throat. Noctis hugged his arm around himself and pretended that it was his, holding him in the bed he missed; stroking across his hips, up his back, and into his hair. Taking such attentive care of him. Telling him, without any of the words, that he loved him.

“I promise to behave,” Nyx said. “If you promise to be good to yourself?”

“Okay. I think I can do that for you.”

“Good boy,” Nyx said; Noctis bit his lip and shivered beneath the goosebumps his voice left on his skin. “Now, how ‘bout we talk about all the things we’ll do when I get back?”


	3. dreams of home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> late night conversations on the front stoop.

He was halfway back to falling asleep when Noctis’s shoulder bumped into his. Nyx’s head bolted up from his hands and he blinked the murky haze from his eyes until the prince’s face came into focus. Bleary, blue eyes, pillow-tossed hair, half in Nyx’s clothes, and half in his own; Nyx’s coat wreathing his shoulders.

“It’s chilly,” Noctis mumbled at the amused smile, nestling into the heavy fabric.

“Is it?” Nyx replied, dragging a hand down his face and pretending not to feel how stiff his fingers were.

Noctis wouldn’t add to the pretense, instead catching Nyx’s hand in both of his and pressing his palms to the cool flesh. He nursed careful circles across his skin, following the ink trails of Nyx’s tattoos. Noctis sidled a little closer, shrugging one shoulder from beneath the Kingsglaive jacket and demanding, without any words that Nyx huddle beneath it with him.

“I’m sorry if I woke you,” Nyx sighed, dragging one half of his coat around himself while Noctis tugged on the other side.

“It’s okay, I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

His yawn spoke otherwise. Noctis pouted at the reflexive noise, making Nyx chuckle. Noctis promptly bumped his head beneath Nyx’s chin, burrowing his face into his neck. More silent demands for Nyx to pet him while he settled in his lap.

“Kitten prince,” Nyx mumbled into the tickles of hair against his lips.

Noctis _purred_ , low and deliberate. Nyx felt Noct’s mouth turn into a smile before pressing a kiss to his glaive’s pulse. The immigrant district sang mutely around them, pillowing Nyx’s apartment on all sides. The Wall of Insomnia winked between the crowded rooftops overhead. A veil of violet-blue light, muting the brightness of the faraway stars above it.

Nyx had gotten used to it – the odd artifice of the King’s magic clouding the sky. But there were nights when the Wall felt less like a shield and more like a cage. One that he couldn’t wait to escape by being sent to fight on the borders and rest beneath an unhindered sky while acting as sentry for his brothers. It made him miss the home he could only go back to in his dreams.

“Do you…” Noctis paused, fidgeting on the stone step beneath him. “Nevermind.”

“Do I want to talk about it?”

Noctis quieted, fingers idling between Nyx’s, constantly moving and squeezing until Nyx’s hands were warm again.

“I know,” he murmured. “Stupid question. I don’t like answering it either. But I’m here. If you want to. Talk about it, I mean. And I’m here if you don’t.”

Nyx freed up one hand from Noctis’s massaging fingers – now growing nervous and erratic to match his close sentences. Nyx wrapped his arm around the prince’s back beneath the coat surrounding them both. The gesture had become instinctive; as effortless and practiced as slipping through the sleeves of that same coat every morning. He didn’t even think about it anymore. His fingers brushed up and down Noct’s spine, light as the twinkle of the faraway stars as he traced the memorized scar beneath his shirt.

“Nyx,” Noctis said, a note of indignation in his voice. “ _I’m_ supposed to be comforting _you_.”

“You are. This does.”

Nyx pressed his traveling hand into the dip of a shoulder-blade, turning the heel of his palm in lazy circles. He was rewarded with the little whimper that made the corners of his mouth twitch up. The tiniest sound of contentment, as quiet as a kitten’s slumbering sigh.

They sat in the cool night for a while before Nyx said anything else, hand turning constantly and absently along Noctis’s back. And Noctis lacing the fingers of his other hand between his, thumb brushing over knuckles white with scar and cold. The warmth was a relief now. He’d needed the cold, just for a moment, but let it freeze him for too long. He’d been too tired to get back up, go inside, hold Noctis close, and forget the hammer of his own heart.

It hadn’t been a nightmare that roused him, blood racing so hot that he felt like he was burning from the inside out. It had been a sweet dream that had chased him out from under Noct’s arm slung across his chest. It had been half memory, half fantasy. Everyone he loved had been there, splashing through the rivers and jumping from the lowest bows of the trees on the banks.

Everyone but Noctis.

“It’s okay,” he heard Noctis say, as if he could hear into his mind. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

Noctis brought their entwined hands to his lips, squeezing his other arm around Nyx’s waist. He reached for the sleeve of the coat hanging from his shoulder to wrap it around Nyx’s arm, carefully covering every cool patch of skin. Nyx watched the gentle motions, the subtle consideration, the automatic and attentive animations that cared for him like little else ever had.

“Sometimes I feel guilty,” Nyx confessed to the touches, unbidden in the comforting quiet; against the soft warmth of his prince curled around him.

“For?”

“For wanting to go home.”

Nyx’s hand moved from its kneading into Noctis’s shoulder to thread through the prince’s hair, caressing every strand with touch and breath. Closing his eyes to focus on the scent of him – berries, he thought; something sweet and wild. He squeezed his eyes harder when it reminded him of the woods from his childhood.

“I feel guilty for wanting to go back to a place that doesn’t exist, when this – _you_ – is so perfect. When everything I used to think wasn’t worth having, I found in you, and wanted to keep. I feel guilty for dreaming about another home, when I don’t ever want to leave the one I have with you.”

His hand tangled a little tighter through Noctis’s hair and he pressed a hard kiss to his head. Affirming for himself that _this_ was home. That this was what he fought for every day. For the prince’s future, and for his own. He fought for another day to go back home to Noctis. Right here. On the stoop of his shitty apartment. In the most forgotten part of the city.

“Wanna hear a secret?” Noctis whispered.

“Mmhm.”

“Sometimes I dream of another home, too. Someplace I’ve never been to. Or, at least, I don’t remember if I’ve been to or not. There’s a lighthouse and the sea and no one else for miles. And I go to the top of the lighthouse and fall right into the ocean. It’s terrifying and exciting, and for some reason, that’s home to me.”

He shifted from underneath Nyx’s chin, blinking sleep from his eyes to better look into his. Thoughtful, beautiful, blue eyes. Better starlight than the Wall above. A small, mischievous spark lit them up as he smiled.

“I think it’s just our minds’ way of saying Insomnia _sucks_.”

Nyx snorted, shaking his head and bumping his face against Noct’s forehead. Scratching his jaw across his brow and delighting in the ticklish shiver that passed through the prince because of it.

“That your professional dream therapist opinion?”

“I’ll waive my fee just for you. But only if you come back to bed. I can try giving you something else to dream about.”

Noctis kissed him, easy and forgiving. Claiming Nyx’s heart all over again. He fell in love with him like it was the first time every day. When he could confide these strange, midnight bedfellows to him and Noctis only accepted them as his own. Opened up his walls and welcomed them in like the city around them never truly had.

“Come on,” Noctis prompted, curling both arms around Nyx’s waist and moving to stand, dragging the glaive up with him. “Bedtime.”

Nyx smiled, standing up and tucking his coat back around Noctis as he followed him back into the apartment. The only door that had ever opened for him. By the only person who’d ever invited him in.


	4. the prince, the knight, and the wardrobe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyx never thought about how sparse his closet was until Noctis started rummaging through it.

There was very little in Nyx’s closet.

_“Especially since you came out?”_

Disturbing, how quickly Crowe’s voice could infiltrate his most mundane of thoughts. Spiritual insertion aside, Nyx’s actual wardrobe was barren in comparison to his metaphorical one.

He had the Glaive’s guard uniform, one other pair of boots, sneakers, sweats, two pairs of jeans, a couple shirts, and a really old leather jacket that he was half-certain wasn’t even his because he couldn’t remember buying it or ever being gifted it. (He did wear it out though. It was a nice jacket, whether it belonged to him or not. Might as well put it to good use!)

Rarely did he have a moment to itemize the articles of clothing in his closet. He tended to just throw whatever was on his person in there at the end of the day and take it to the laundromat once a week. He frequented a whole of two places – work and after-work bar. One demanded uniform, the other was often half out of the same-said uniform. T-shirt and jeans on the weekends if a patron felt like it.

Even when he dated, the spots he steered prospective partners towards didn’t necessitate a particular dress code. He could get away with the shirt, jeans, and boots for most date spots – especially with this mysterious jacket he’d inherited from the void tossed over it all.

“Adds to your rugged charm,” he remembered one old flame saying.

He got by well enough with what he had. What he lacked in fashion, he could make up for in a smile. Half of him getting anywhere in Insomnia was through charming his way through the undertow of the city. Quick wit and knife tricks had been his keys to much better-off apartments with much fuller closets than his own.

He didn’t often bring potential conquests to his own apartment. All the work he’d done to impress dates with his good looks and suave (read: crap) lines would be entirely undone once they set foot through his door. Nothing romantic about his living situation. Couldn’t disguise the under-furnished stone box as anything other than a space to survive. Hardly a mood enhancer.

Which was why he was _positive_ it would be a turn-off for the future fucking _King of Lucis_.

Nyx still wasn’t even sure how this had happened – much like how that jacket had bestowed itself upon his person. One day, he was being very, _very_ stupid – sometimes, he wondered if he’d been drunk – and had _flirted_ with the blue-eyed prince. He wasn’t even sure he _meant_ to; he’d just made a joke and it came out as a pick-up line. Then, what felt like a mere blink in time later, he had the prince writhing beneath him in the royal chambers, muffling moans into black satin pillows. Best and most dangerous bed Nyx had ever sunk into.

Which was why they had to shift their activities to a less frequented venue. Nyx might have found the thought depressing that his apartment ended up being the lonely candidate, if he weren’t so eager to _hear_ Noctis. The concrete walls were thicker than the Citadel’s – and less riddled with holes in the walls. And Nyx was the only one with a key to it, unlike Noct’s own, upper-class apartment that he shared with his advisor. Nyx’s place was discreetly tucked away from the highways and camera-phones of the sleepless city. _Private_.

The first time Nyx realized how desperate Noctis craved the safety of such privacy was the first night he snuck his way down to the Galahdian district. He’d thought the sag in Noct’s shoulders upon entering the tiny space was disappointment before he whirled around, kissed Nyx to the wall, and the glaive felt the prince’s _relief_ unspooling from beneath his hands.

For all the splendor of Noctis’s own chambers, Nyx’s cell was a paradise to him.

And every cheap, wayward object that somehow found occupancy in this chilly little nook was a treasure.

Nyx never cared about the contents of his closet until he came home from his shift one day and found Noctis squirming into one of his shirts.

It was a month or two into whatever it was they were doing, and Nyx let Noctis stay in the apartment while he went to work. An unconscious exercise in trusting his space to him. It was a pale blue Henley that he found Noctis huddling into. A gift from the one ex that didn’t fall for the “rugged charm” of his hand-me-down chic and insisted on dressing him to their specific tastes. Didn’t last very long, that one. But the shirt, like every article of clothing that landed in his possession, just got swallowed up and forgotten in the laundry pile sinkhole.

“Try not to gag on that,” Nyx chuckled, announcing his presence while he watched Noctis bring the neckline to his face and inhale. “Don’t think it’s been washed in years.”

Noctis froze where he stood, eyes transfixed on Nyx as he entered the apartment. Nyx smiled at him, nudging the door closed, tossing his key onto the desk, and working through the fastenings of his jacket. There was a nervous shimmer to Noct’s otherwise motionless eyes. They were bright like frost in the pre-dawn gloom of the Wall’s light, still and glinting mutely before beginning to thaw.

“Try not to think that this is as creepy as it looks,” Noctis replied with a wobbly smile, trying to play off the compromising scene as less mortifying than he truly felt it was. “I promise I’m not that kind of boyfriend.”

Nyx’s fingers stilled for a fraction of a moment over the coat fastenings before he recovered himself and continued to slide out of the jacket. He met those eyes again, dark blues as polished as precious stones above the soft hue of the shirt.

“Oh?” Nyx teased, gently. “What kind of boyfriend are you, then?”

Noctis opened his mouth to return the tease before stalling, the same way Nyx had; less subtly, as the word they’d never defined before clicked in his head. His mouth closed again, pale cheeks beginning to flush pink, and his eyes shifting down towards a sightless point somewhere below Nyx’s feet.

“Right. Labels. We didn’t, we don’t do labels, right, umm… let me take this off, leave your home, change my name, and go live under a rock for ten years until we both forget this ever happened.”

Nyx chuckled, dropping his coat onto the back of his desk chair before slipping over to where Noctis was knotting his fingers into the hem of the shirt. Nyx touched his face, halting his movements, gliding a thumb along the edge of his eye to summon that pretty stare back to him.

“Leave that on, stay where you are, and keep your name as it is. I think I like my boyfriend in blue. It brings out your eyes.”

Noctis blinked, slowly. Following the shapes Nyx’s lips made over every word to help stamp themselves on his brain. He stared back at him, eyes guided by the delicate touch whispering along his face. Nyx watched and waited for the consideration to unknot itself from the middle of Noctis’s throat. The relief that he’d been able to award him within the secreted confines of his apartment returned in a deep sigh. The shirt was big on him. Slipped down his shoulders with the exhale to tease the defined line of his collarbone. And displaying the faded marks Nyx had nipped along it the night before.

“You can have it back,” Noctis said, smiling timidly. “I just really like the way my boyfriend smells. In a completely dumb, not obsessive serial killer way, I swear.”

Nyx laughed, shaking his head and looping an arm around the prince’s waste and alighting a kiss on his curling lips.

“You can wear my clothes all you want. Just don’t make my eyes into jewelry and I think we can make this relationship work just fine.”

Noctis laughed in return, pushing his head against Nyx’s chest to hide the ridiculous blush spreading across his cheeks.

After that, Nyx’s closet slowly started to get fuller. This time with clothes he was fully certain didn’t belong to him, and made the absent space feel a little less lonely.


	5. security blanket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I had a nightmare about you and just wanted to make sure you're okay."

“I had a nightmare about you and just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

Nyx barely gave him a breath to comprehend the words before the glaive steeled his face, whipped around, and marched back down the hall from whence he came. Noctis wanted to bemoan him his finer motor skills at such an unholy hour, but had to settle for whatever incoherent nonsense came jumbling up between his cheeks instead.

“‘M okay. Comm back. Nnn… Please stahp…”

He’d hardly gotten both of his own feet underneath him to answer the door in the first place, let alone had enough cognitive function to stumble after him without catching a wall to the face instead of a hand in his own. By some sleep-addled trickle of divine providence, Noctis managed to weigh anchor along Nyx’s arm and drag both their bodies back to the cushy shore of his apartment. Nyx’s protests were coarse and clipped through the mire of Noct’s not-awake brain. Whatever he could decipher, he tried to muddle together an answer for it.

“Ig’s not in. No guards ‘cos whatever. Shuddup an’ come in.”

It took barely any consciousness whatsoever for Noctis to come to the conclusion that the only way he was getting Nyx to stay was if he gave him no other choice in the matter. He shut the door, assumed it locked, and bumped Nyx over to the couch to collapse himself bodily across each potentially mobile inch of him.

There. He did it. Boyfriend subdued _and_ he could feasibly fall back asleep right there. He didn’t even have to be awake to accomplish all that. He’d be pretty damn proud of himself if he wasn’t so damn tired.

“Noct, I can’t stay…”

“Stuck now. Have to stay. Boo for you.”

Noctis yawned into Nyx’s shirt, trying to remember how to form consonant sounds to better reprimand him for thinking he could run away. It took a few breaths for Nyx to catch before he settled into the couch cushions. Noctis accepted his surrender in the feel of his hands alighting along his back. He huffed out a breath of victory that could have very well been a snore, against his better intentions.

The stillness and the silence nearly tempted Noctis back to sleep, but the hard thump of Nyx’s heart beneath his ear and the almost feverish heat of his skin reminded him against such an inviting idea. The heat concerned him. Nyx ran hot by default, but beneath the thin shirt between Noct’s face and Nyx’s body, he could feel that Nyx was scalding. His abdomen contracted with each hasty breath, lifting Noctis on a harsh, frantic tide of barely suppressed panic.

Noctis hefted his chin up against Nyx’s chest, blowing the mussed hair from his eyes so he could better see his. Nyx was staring at the ceiling though, mouth pressed in a stern line and nostrils flaring with his sharp intakes of breath.

“That bad?” Noctis murmured in the darkness.

“That bad.”

“Tell me about it?”

“No. Just…”

Nyx’s hands squeezed around Noct’s back in silent behest. He needed a little quiet. Just with Noct. He needed to hold him and know he was there and solid and real against him. Noctis uttered a quiet “okay” and shifted further up Nyx’s chest. He wriggled his arms between Nyx’s back and the couch cushions to curl his hands along his shoulders and hold him closer.

This was often what Noctis needed when it was him. The nightmares were always loud. They were always callous and cold. And most of all, they were lonely. That was the part of them that always scared him the most – being alone, having to face down whatever manifestation of his deepest fears decided to plague him on any given night by himself.

His and Nyx’s nightmares were kindred dark spirits. They dreamt different things, they didn’t always tell each other what about, but the seed of their nightmares were always the same. Being alone. Losing everything. Failure. That was a fairly prevalent theme for them both.

Noctis hadn’t been dreaming of anything that night. Nothing tangible, anyway. Just the same whispery longings to be in a different bed than the one he would wake up. Just the imprinted memory of the same skin he craved to feel around him in the morning. He prayed that Carbuncle hadn’t interpreted a wish from his yearning subconscious, and delivered Nyx to his doorstep by way of bad dreams.

The quiet was long, and Noctis hoped it was as tranquil for Nyx as it was for him. He hoped that he got some kind of comfort out of listening to him breathe and feeling his arms around him and knowing he was safe and warm and that he loved him more than any night terror could ever hurt him.

He thought that he did. Nyx’s breathing was evening out the longer he lay still. His skin felt a little cooler beneath Noctis, albeit a little stickier. Maybe a nice hot shower, Noctis resolved. Or maybe he could run him a bath to relax the tension out of his taut muscles. He wasn’t sure that he could properly massage out the stress himself, but there had to be some sort of soothing soap or oil or something he could maybe…

Nyx suddenly snapped his arms up around Noctis to hug him tighter. He got an undignified snort of surprise and an accidental knee to the groin for the abrupt lift. Noctis shimmied his face out from where it was smashed against his shoulder. Before he could open his mouth, Nyx spoke, his voice as rough as an old gravel road.

“I can’t lose you, Noct.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere…”

“You know what I mean.”

Nyx’s arms shook with how hard he held onto him. It almost hurt. But Noctis let him do what he had to, say what he needed to, whatever it took for him to feel like he was real. He hugged him back and waited through it, riding out Nyx’s breaths and murmuring the best promises he could make him while he was still yawning himself awake.

“You wanna have sex?” he asked. “That makes you feel better.”

Nyx chuckled and Noctis felt it rumble through his whole body. He smiled against the feeling, cheek resting against Nyx’s sternum to feel his steadying heartbeat.

“I always want to have sex with you,” Nyx said, sinking a little lower into the couch. “But this is fine for tonight. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They fell into quiet again, the hum of the city far below lulling throughout the apartment. The violet light of the Wall shifted the dark, made the shadows seem a little less sinister and a little more mystical. It had always been Noct’s reminder that there was nothing to be afraid of.

He wasn’t always sure if the same things made Nyx feel safe, too. But he did what he could. He woke up for him and stayed awake for him and listened and lay and just let himself be for him. They didn’t talk much during times like these, but the moment, silent though it was, was always enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually remember why I started this as a collective rather than posting all these onshots as stand-alones. But rather than break them up and lose all the nice comments, I figured I'd finish it off on a nice solid number five with one more moment~


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